Information for Midwest orchid growers

Archive for the ‘Plants and flowers’ Category

After more than a year hiatus, I’ll restart the Orchids Alive in Zone 5 blog with a few photos of the a few of the orchids in the collection that are blooming. See the Photos page for more images. The three orchids – Mokara Salaya Gold; Brassavola nodosa; and Phal. Be Tris. All are reliable bloomers. The Brassavola and Phal. often bloom more than once a year. This time, however, Br. Nodoa produced 41 blossoms, a record for this plant, which I bought at a nursery in Corpus Christi, TX, in 2002. The Mokara was bought six years ago at the neighborhood HyVee.

Blogging and weekly orchid inspections took a backseat to a little summer R&R during the last couple of weeks. The only visible damage to the collection that I can find so far is a cattleya once hung in the apple tree was blown to ground, pot broken and bark scattered. The orchid itself, C. Chocolate Drop ‘NOK’, is a vigorous plant with several still-intact sheaths. (more…)

Over the weekend, one of the several seedlings bloomed that I bought a couple of years ago during Tom and Barbara Larkin’s annual Whippoorwill sale in Arkansas. [See last week’s post about another plant I bought at the sale.]

It is a Larkin cross between Pot. Hoku Gem ‘Sun Spots’ x Pot. Little Toshie ‘Gold Country’, AM. When I bought it, I hoped for a mini catt with spotted flowers. (more…)

The orchids, especially the Catts, are budding up and blooming. Since leaving the greenhouse this spring, they’ve shed the doldrums of confinement and become lush and vigorous – well, at least most of them have. Even the ones that aren’t actually in bloom have developed numerous sheaths, harbingers of beauty for the fall and winter.

Cattleya maxima is a particular favorite. I bought it several years ago on the final day of the OSGKC show when the vendors were breaking down their booths. A desiccated, bare-root C. maxima had been tossed in a heap with some other plants by the Ecuagenera salesman. The plant had a withered flower so I was hopeful that, despite my lack of experience with bare-root purchases, this plant was a viable bloomer – which it has been, every year since I bought it. I grow it in a shallow, clay pot with a medium bark, charcoal and inorganic pellets mix

The Catasetum ochraceum is also a reliable and fragrant bloomer. This year it produced a record number (for me) of inflorescences . In addition this is the first year that I’ve had a female flower on this multi-sex plant. (That’s the flower pictured on the Photos page.] (more…)

Epi. parkinsonianum — aka Epi. Once-in-a-Blue-Moon — has condescended to bloom again. The last time it sent out its creamy and white blossom, with a texture almost as dense as a hoya flower, was a little more than two years ago.

Not sure what the trick is. Last winter was relentlessly cold. Although the Escabe furnace fought the brave fight keeping the greenhouse’s temperature up, the thermostat sometimes dipped down into the upper 40s at night. Was that the trick? I always position the long, thick-leafed Epi. up high for maximum exposure to light, and I mist it every morning, as I do all the mounted plants. Was that the trick?

Who knows.

Since early May the plant has lived outside in the summer house, again hanging high up for optimum brightness. This year, summer heat came early to our midwest strip of Zone 5. Even back in late June, the temperatures sometimes remained in the 90s for several days. By July, the 90s became common — occasionally hitting 100. Lately, the heat index often goes above 100.

My little Phal. equestris ‘Riverbend’ is blooming. It’s a young plant, just one inflorescence rather than the multi-inflorescences that I’ve seen on older
Riverbends…but oh my, this little orchid is a workhorse . It blooms two or three times a year. A couple of years ago, I had another equestris, which was pest and disease prone. Not so ‘Riverbend.” This equestris has an iron-tough constitution. If you’re looking for a little Phal and the colors of this one appeal to you, contact Tom Larkin at Whippoorwill Orchids. Tom is the breeder: 9720 Larkin Lane Rogers, Arkansas 72756. Phone: (501) 925-1885. Fax: (501)925-2428.

I bought Bulbophyllum echinolabium as a small seedling about five years ago after I saw its fabulous bloom on a large plant exhibited by Windy Hills Orchids at a Southwest Regional Orchid Growers Conference in Arkansas. I was lulled into orchid-junky admiration (a familiar affliction among newbies to the hobby) by the flower’s size, coloring and graceful lines – all of which could be appreciated from a distance.

Distance. Now that’s the operative word here. Because at six feet, the Bulb. echinolabium is as deceptively charming as it is hideously repulsive at six inches.

Yesterday, I took the plant out of the greenhouse and set it in the backyard. By the time I returned three minutes later, its pouched lip – a beet-red proboscis that swings in the breeze – was covered in flies. (more…)

Cymbidium Black Gold The Napa Valley Orchid Society has come and gone. Almost all the orchids are gone. The left just a few and so I am moving on with a collection of about a dozen plants pulled out of the trash. The plant in the best condition is this Cymbidium hybrid. It is a very well known variety first awarded in 1966. The problem is the name which is a […]